The storage room was a tomb of shadows, illuminated only by the faint, ghostly blue bleed from Arjun’s “Samsung S24 Ultra”.

  The air was thick with the suffocating scent of jute and pulverized wheat. Priya was crouched so close to Arjun that he could hear the frantic *thrum-thrum* of her heart against her ribs.

  Outside, just four inches of plywood away, their fathers were laughing.

  "Ramesh, your son has finally found his path," Mahinder’s voice boomed. "A 'Digital Center' in Baridih... who would have thought? Maybe he can help my Priya with her bank exam forms."

  Inside, Priya’s hand flew to her mouth. A single stray sneeze from the flour dust would end her life as she knew it. She looked at Arjun. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the screen, his face a mask of titanium focus.

  Arjun leaned closer to Priya’s ear, his voice a vibration more than a sound. "You want to be a Bank Manager, right? You want to understand high finance? Well, here is your first lesson: Survival."

  He turned the laptop screen toward her. He opened “Zerodha” and “Angel One”.

  "The Aviator money is 'air'. It’s ghost money," Arjun whispered, his fingers dancing across the trackpad. "But if I move it into Blue Chip stocks—Tata Motors, Reliance, HDFC—it becomes 'Equity.' If the IT department asks, I tell them I’m a Day Trader. I show them my Zerodha portfolio. And you... you are going to be my Auditor."

  Priya’s eyes widened. "You're asking me to lie to the government? To my father?"

  "I'm asking you to be real," Arjun hissed. "You saw the balance. ?12 Lakhs. In six months, I can make it ?1 Crore. I can buy your father’s debt. I can put you in a corner office in Mumbai. Or, you can walk out that door right now, tell them everything, and we both go back to being village failures. Which is it, Priya?"

  Priya looked at the screen, then at the door where her father stood. The "guilt" in her heart was being slowly suffocated by a new, darker emotion: **Ambition.** She realized that Arjun wasn't just gambling; he was building a staircase out of the mud.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  "What do I have to do?" she whispered.

  "Open the Angel One app on your phone," Arjun commanded. "I’m going to transfer ?2 Lakhs to a dummy account Mehta Ji set up. You will 'analyze' the trades. We need a paper trail of 'Technical Analysis' to prove the income is from Stock Trading, not a crash-game app."

  As Priya began to type, the sound of footsteps approached the storage room door. *Haaaahhh.* "Arjun? Is the Lassi ready?" Ramesh’s hand touched the latch. “Creak.”

  Arjun didn't panic. He grabbed a burlap sack and threw it over the laptop, then stepped toward the door, partially blocking Priya with his own body. He opened the door just three inches.

  "Almost, Papa! The lamination machine was overheating, I had to shut it down. Give me two minutes!"

  Ramesh grunted. "Hurry up. Mahinder has to get back to the Mandi."

  The door closed. The "Click" of the latch sounded like a guillotine blade missing its mark. Arjun turned back to Priya. She was covered in a fine layer of flour, her eyes burning with a new, fierce light. She wasn't the "Girl from 2022" anymore. She was an accomplice.

  Priya took the phone. Her fingers, usually used for turning textbook pages, felt heavy. She looked at the Zerodha interface.

  "If we’re going to do this," Priya said, her voice regaining its strength, "we can't just buy random stocks. We need a 'Beta-Neutral' portfolio. We need to hedge the Aviator winnings against market crashes. If you’re going to use 'AK Digital' as a front, it needs to look like a FinTech startup, not a village shop."

  Arjun looked at her, a smirk finally breaking his mask. "That’s why I need a Bank Manager. Start the buy-orders for Nifty 50. We’re going to wash ?5 Lakhs by sunset."

  Just as the first trade for 100 shares of Reliance was executed, Arjun’s S24 Ultra vibrated. An "Unknown Number" appeared on the screen.

  Arjun stepped back into the corner and answered. "Hello?"

  "The 1,000x multiplier was a bold move, Arjun," a voice said. It was smooth, distorted by a voice-changer, sounding like a digital ghost. "The Aviator algorithm doesn't like it when a single ID from a village in Jharkhand pulls a million in a night. You've triggered a 'Red Flag' not just in the bank, but in the **System's back-end.**"

  Arjun’s grip tightened on the phone. "Who is this?"

  "Let’s just say I’m a 'Senior' in the game you’re playing. You have 48 hours before the app's security team locks your account and 'claws back' your winnings. If you want to keep that ?12 Lakh, you need to lose ?2 Lakh tonight in a 'patterned' way to fool the bot. Then, you need to move the rest into the market."

  "Why help me?" Arjun asked.

  "Because," the voice chuckled, "I want to see what a boy with a 'Bank Manager' as a partner can actually do. Don't disappoint me, Director."

  “Click.” The line went dead.

  Arjun looked at Priya. She was busy on the laptop, her face illuminated by the green and red of the stock charts. She looked beautiful, dangerous, and trapped.

  Arjun looked at the Aviator app.

  He had to lose. He had to intentionally throw away two lakhs to save the ten. It was a move he hadn't planned for.

  "Priya," Arjun said, his voice cold. "Stop the stock buys. We have a problem. The 'System' knows we're here."

  Priya looked up, her face pale. "What do you mean 'it knows'?"

  "We have to 'bleed' the account," Arjun said, his thumb hovering over a ?50,000 bet he knew would crash. "We have to look like losers so we can remain winners."

  Outside, the tractor engine started up again. Mahinder was leaving. The physical danger was passing, but the digital war was just beginning. Arjun felt a drop of sweat fall from his chin onto the S24 Ultra's screen.

  1.0x... 1.05x...

  CRASH.

  -?50,000.

  Arjun’s heart ached, but his eyes were on the long game.

  "Welcome to the firm, Priya," he whispered. "Let’s see if we can survive the night."

  Nest —

  Chapter 17: "The Managed Bleed"?